


The Silence of Angels

by swanqueengranger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanqueengranger/pseuds/swanqueengranger
Summary: Declared a savior of the Wizarding world, Harry wrestles with his anger, emptiness, and lack of faith. Where does a hero turn when the world refuses to understand? A quick one shot about the silent realization of salvation in the one person who has never left his side.





	The Silence of Angels

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I do not own these characters and I’m not making money off of this. They belong to JK Rowling. I’m just borrowing them for a little while.

The fire crackled, spitting warmth and light across the darkened floor. The house was silent save for the licking of the flames as they poured light into the familiar scene. A lone figure sat quietly, his eyes boring into the dancing waves, seeing far past their mere existence.

He knew he was falling into a deeper contemplative depression. 

Her words, but he knew them to be true. Even if he wasn’t cognizant of what he was feeling, he would have trusted her statement blindly. 

She would never tell him anything but the truth.

Now, that was something he craved more than anything else. 

He was being bombarded on all sides with words he didn’t want to hear; praise thrown his way that he couldn’t bear to allow himself to acknowledge.

He was not merely a hero of the war; not merely the man who had vanquished Voldemort, but the savior of their world. Everyone was celebrating and overjoyed and here he was – staring silently in a dank room he couldn’t bring himself to change. 

All around him, he was met with people pushing him; telling him that things would be ok. Lives had been given because they had believed in what everyone was fighting for. 

They hadn’t died because of him. Everyone else was alive because of him. 

_“Give us a smile, Harry!”_

_“Have a quote, Harry?!!”_

_“Can I shake your hand, Mr. Potter?!”_

He would become angered then and quickly find his way back to the solitude of his sitting chair in front of the fire in Grimmauld Place.

He’d received countless owls and visits from friends and acquaintances telling him that he was being too hard on himself. It was a miracle that so many had come through at all, they’d said; a miracle that he had not been killed in every encounter with Voldemort.

Whispers swirled around him; articles written wherever he looked. He must have had a guardian angel, people had mused. A protector for their protector.

He had saved them all. 

He was a hero.

How could he tell them that he had never felt less like a hero in the moment they all expected him to the most? 

He didn’t save everyone and the miracle would have been if none of this had happened. 

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and dropped his head. He had never believed in angels or miracles. He had always wanted to; always wanted a faith in something greater than this and yet after everything that he had been through that should have tipped his belief in that direction, he was only left with a profound emptiness. 

He had seen the face of evil; watched as it tore its way through countless lives. How could he truly contemplate the existence of angels and miracles when he had stood face to face with so much death and suffering?

A deep sigh left his lips as his eyes opened to stare back at the dancing flames. 

No. He was no hero and he was no angel.

The ones who were no longer here were the heroes and angels he had believed in.

He heard the door close softly above him, and leaned his face slowly against his hand.

There was only one who was still here.

Only one who had always been here really. 

Only one who never questioned his motives or actions since the war. 

Only one who didn’t look at him with pity but still looked him in the eye.

The one who spoke without words and who kept the world at bay.

 _Hermione_ was a hero.

He felt her before he registered the squeak of the floorboard. Her silence startled his inner monologue more than the fact that she had been able to sneak up on him. Her stealth ability had improved as greatly as his own had it seemed. 

A necessity of heroes. 

He raised one brow and half turned his head to take her in. She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed as she leaned against the frame. Her hair was haphazard and her face bathed in the moonlight spilling across the floor, as if it were stretching tenuously towards her; beckoning her forth.

He focused on the creeping moonlight for a moment, registered the knowing look in her eyes and sighed. 

Silence stretched between them for what seemed like hours as he merely stared at her in the muted light of the room. The firelight danced conflicting hues across her features as her dark eyes searched his face. A solitary tear glistened in the flickering wave of light and with a gentle swiftness, she pushed herself away from the doorframe and stepped through the moonlight towards him. 

Harry turned his head back towards the flames and immediately felt the warmth of her presence enter the space behind his chair. A warm hand slowly slipped into the messy mop of his dark hair and he his slipped eyes close involuntarily at the comfort of the gesture. 

A part of him wanted to look up, search out her eyes and tell her everything.

His fears and doubts. The way his nightmares had changed.

He wanted to explain how he relieved that horrendous moment in the cave when he forced Dumbledore to drink Riddle’s poison. He wanted to explain how he watched the man he respected more than anyone writhe in agony and call out to him for help he couldn’t give 

He wanted to tell her that sometimes it was her sprawled upon the rocks.

He wanted to scream and ask her why he couldn’t find the peace that he had been so certain would come at the end of this. Why couldn’t he just be relieved that it was all finally over?

His eyes slipped open slowly and locked once more upon the dancing flames in front of him and he disregarded the desire almost as quickly as he had yearned for it.

He knew that it would be unnecessary anyway. Hermione would already know anything he would possibly say. 

A small pit of warmth flickered in his stomach at the thought.

Perhaps he did have a guardian angel after all. 

The fireplace hissed and kicked an ember towards the floorboards and he lifted his hand to the one resting on his shoulder. With a gentle squeeze, Hermione folded her fingers over his own.

The crackling of the fire was the only sound.


End file.
